What is it about the Austin Maestro? Why is it perpetually the subject of ridicule and derision? On a strictly rational basis, it is always possible to make the case for a comfortable, spacious, thoroughly un-flashy, practical, economical car that gives good value for the money, and the Maestro was exactly that. So why does the Maestro take such a beating?

The Maestro, initially known as the LC10 project, was planned by BLMC to replace the Austin Allegro and Austin Maxi. It was conceived, under a team led by Spen King, the ex-Rover engineering director who was recognised as the father of the 1963 Rover 2000 P6, 1970 Range-Rover and the 1976 Rover 3500SD1, as a conventional car built with an emphasis on space and convenience. The days of BLMC doing adventurous engineering with inadequate execution were over.

The car was to be part of a two-car family, with a saloon version to replace the Morris Marina and Princess, and to compete with the Ford Cortina, also planned and which actually came in 1984 as the Austin Montego. However, BL determined early (but not at the beginning of) the development programme that the business priority lay in getting the shorter hatchback to the market ahead of the saloon, to compete on a more even footing against the VW Golf, Vauxhall Astra/Opel Kadett and Ford Escort.

King determined to keep to conventional solutions, with the intention of getting better value, in terms of final product performance, for the development money. Therefore the Maestro had McPherson strut front suspension, just like a Golf, a torsion beam rear suspension, just like a Golf, and instead of the Issigonis in-sump gearbox, it even had an actual VW gearbox from a Golf. This preliminary development was being completed within three years of the launch of the Golf, and it is interesting to note just how quickly the Golf had become influential. Indeed, it is rumoured that the first prototypes actually used VW rear axles, bought by BL from UK spares distributors.

BL had made a decision to buy in gearboxes from VW, rather than develop their own, following trials with the VW unit and a prototype BL unit. It ate into the (hoped-for) profit, but helped to ease the development time and ensure quality.

Photo from www.aronline.co.uk

The timing of the development of this car is also crucial to the story. Initial planning started in 1975 and formal Board go-ahead was given in May 1976. Indeed, the car was being crashed tested in 1977.

In 1977, the government appointed a new executive Chairman to BL – Michael Edwardes – with a clear brief to get the company back on its feet, and approval to take what the politicians might have called “hard decisions”, including culling underperforming models, brands and factories.

Edwardes also identified two other key points – the company needed not only new, mainstream products and needed these new products as quickly as possible; and also that the company did not have the capacity, financial or technical, to develop the Maestro in parallel with the also commercially vital supermini. The smaller car, launched as the Austin miniMetro, was ahead in the chain, and by focussing resources could be completed for 1980. The Maestro was about 2 years behind, so the miniMetro took precedence and was launched in September 1980. The Maestro took second place, and was launched in March 1983.

The downside of this was that the Maestro was benchmarked against such cars as the VW Golf Mk 1, Fiat Strada/Ritmo, Renault 14 and Chrysler Horizon, which were obsolete (or close to it) before the Maestro was launched, rather than the 1980 FWD Ford Escort, 1981 Renault 9/11 (Alliance/Encore) or 1979 Vauxhall Astra/Opel Kadett.

The other significant factor is that the LC10 started as a Cortina – Cavalier competitor and Marina replacement, not a Golf and Escort beater. Consequently, the original layout was for a 101-inch wheelbase saloon (sedan), ideally sized to compete with the Cortina. But in view of the decision that the more pressing need was to compete lower down the market and with a hatchback, this car was too big. The competitors were all 94- to 96-inch wheelbase hatchbacks, not over 100-inch wheelbase saloons.

So, the wheelbase of the LC10 was trimmed by 2.4 inches to create the LM10 to be the Masestro, and the LC10 continued as the LM11 to become the Montego. This was consistent with many other manufacturers, who let front-wheel drive move up the model range rather than down it. VW, Ford and GM all introduced front-wheel drive hatchbacks to the lower part of the market first, before replacing rear-drive larger saloons, as did the Japanese.

Hence, BL had a competitor for the Golf and Escort which was actually substantially larger (the Golf and Escort were both on 94-inch wheelbases, Maestro 98.5 inch), which meant it was more spacious or more expensive to build, depending which way you looked at it. To help make the car shorter, to differentiate it from the Montego and to match the competitors, it had a very short rear overhang, which when added to the long front overhang and the placing of the front wheels almost under the front pillars, gave the car an unusual stance and proportions.

Again, BL had built a car that was a slightly different size than everyone else’s, just as had happened with the Landcrab, the Marina and the Princess. And, to add to the mix, the Metro was smaller than its main competitors, making the size gap in the Austin range wider than the comparable gap between the Fiesta and Escort, or Polo and Golf, or Renault 5 and 9, Vauxhall Nova and Astra, or Nissan Cherry and Sunny…

Engine wise, the car was planned to have either a 1.3-litre OHV A series, with the modifications developed for the Metro that permitted BLMC to call it the A+, or an extensive development of the E series used in the 1968 Austin Maxi, and known as the S series. However, the first Maestros had a version known as the R series, a halfway house from the E to the S series.

The R-Series was mainly a stop gap, and had a very short production run that lasted less than two years. BL had been working on the more substantially-different S series engine, but this was not ready for production in time for the Maestro, partly because the company had been unable to make a full business case for it to the UK government.

The company was instead forced into launching the Maestro with the half-developed power unit which cost BL dearly – the R-Series equipped Maestros soon gained a reputation for hot starting problems, cylinder head gasket failures, and premature crankshaft failure. As installed in the Maestro, the R-Series had the carburettor facing the front of the car, which also led to a reputation for carburettor icing in cold weather. The S series was fitted in 1984.

And then there was the styling. This was fixed in 1977, a staggering six years before the car was launched. The kindest thing you can say about it was that it had big windows and good visibility, but really it was a panache-free zone, and by the time the car was on sale it was quite dated, especially compared with something like the 1984 Astra Mk 2 or even the 1980 Mk3 Escort.

It was actually styled by a team led by David Bache, BL’s director of design and the designer of the Rover 3500 SD1, who recommended it over a design by Harris Mann which was significantly more contemporary, if less glassy and obviously spacious. Some reports state that the Harris Mann concept scored better in market research and clinics than the Bache proposal. Remember, this choice was made in 1976-1967, when David Bache was right at the top of his game with the market response to the Rover SD1, and when Harris Mann was associated with the less critically acclaimed Austin Allegro, Triumph TR7 and Princess.

The Bache concept for the Maestro looked what it was – a rational design that would meet all the logical reasons for buying a car, but touched none of the (necessary) emotional buttons, and had very limited showroom appeal. The interior followed the same tone. But by 1983 its sharp edges were looking dated, compared with cars like the Ford Sierra, Astra Mk 2 and Renault 9 and 11. It was a contemporary of the Chrysler Horizon and looked it.

Late in the development process and realising that the car potentially lacked that showroom appeal and was visually dated, BL opted to include three features in an attempt to add some newsworthiness – body coloured painted plastic bumper–valence panels, an electronic carburettor to try to control fuel consumption more closely and one of the first digital, talking dashboard displays in Europe on the top models.

Somehow – you just know it – all three gave trouble: the bumpers cracked very easily, in impact or even when just very cold, and because they were painted were more expensive to replace, the electronics in the carburettors played up and the talking dashboard, intended to say “fasten seat belt, low fuel level” and the like said the most unusual things. There was a newspaper cartoon of the day Austin-Rover (as BL’s volume car business was now known) Chairman Harold Musgrove took a Maestro into Downing Street to meet Margaret Thatcher, who was drawn saying “It won’t tell me what to do!” Apparently, it didn’t!

The car was launched in March 1983, to a mixed reception. The expectations after the successful Austin miniMetro were quite high but the Maestro was disappointing, mainly for the reasons discussed above. Road tests were favorable, usually ending by saying “this car is quite good, comfortable, spacious, economical and reasonable to drive” but with “dull looks and a dated interior which was unlikely to have the novelty dashboard”, unless you spent a larger amount of money on an MG or Vanden Plas wood and leather special, but it really only got 7 out of 10.

The car was built at the Cowley, Oxford plant, which, being Cowley, celebrated the new car by going on strike. At least the Maestro allowed the Allegro to die quietly, following the Maxi which went in 1981.

The car was sold as an Austin in a typical range of trims, ranging from a 69 bhp 1.3 litre and with a high economy version as well, a 1.6-litre, 86 bhp R series option and with a sports-oriented MG Maestro as the glamour top of the range version. In 1983 and 1984, this came with the 1.6-litre R series engine, with twin Weber carburettors, which raised the output to 103 bhp, aimed at the VW Golf GTi, Ford Escort XR3 and the like. The Webers were included by a late decision and were a bit of a novelty for a British car, and soon gained a reputation for going out of tune, fuel vaporisation and the associated hot starting issues.

The trim and interior of the MG was worked up well, though with a distinctive and mostly tasteful application of red and grey in a very 1980s way. One thing Austin-Rover started to get right in the 1980s was interiors, and the first may have been the MG Maestro. The MG and Vanden Plas versions had the digital dash, which was an option on the some other versions, and market reaction to this feature was very mixed. It was not something potential buyers could be ambivalent about.

The Maestro failed to make the anticipated impact on the market that Austin-Rover had hoped for. It was not that the public disliked the Maestro; it was just that they were not particularly excited by it and so, in the crucial first few months of its production, it did not make a huge impact on the sales charts. The industrial action at Cowley did not help.

The Maestro was designed to compete with the Escort, Astra and Golf. The engine range was reasonably comparable, even if the A series was now 30 years old, and it was class competitive for economy. By being a bit bigger, it had a bit more space. It had a good ride and handled reasonably well. Compared to the Allegro and Marina, it was revelation and on a purely objective basis was so much more competitive in the class than the previous cars. But its predecessors were not the competition.

But, subjectively, the Maestro just couldn’t, and didn’t, light any fires. As a follow up to the Metro, it was a disappointment – it was good but not necessarily any better all round than any of its contemporaries and it did not thoroughly out point the Ford Escort and Vauxhall Astra in the way the Metro did the Ford Fiesta and Vauxhall Chevette three years earlier. The root cause reason for is that the Maestro as sold in 1983 was always an older design than the cars it was competing against.

Add to this the fact BL just seemed unable to add any of what we now call “bling”. This was the mid 1980s, Britain was perhaps feeling a little more confident than it had in the 1970s and we were being told that there was no need to be modest about affluence, which was something the Maestro and the Austin brand just did not have. Indeed, within four years, the Maestro and the Montego would lose their Austin badges and within six years the (effective) replacement, the 1989 Rover 214 and 216, would come under a different, and maybe even aspirational, brand.

In October 1984, the MG Maestro 1600 was replaced by the Maestro 2.0EFi. With 115 bhp, 114 mph and 8.4 seconds to 60, it was significantly more on the pace of its competitors, and the digital dashboard was soon dropped. The green example, in a colour Austin-Rover called British Racing Green and which was the colour to have in 1988, is a 1989 car and was seen by SwissTea.

To top that, and to be the last car from BL without a Honda connection, in 1988 we got the MG Maestro Turbo, with a 2.0-litre turbo charged engine. Despite a body kit, 152bhp 60 mph in under 7 seconds and around 130 mph and “Turbo” picked out in script familiar to a manufacturer from Stuttgart, it arguably still looked most at home in front of a caravan.

There was a diesel Maestro in 1990, with a Perkins engine originally used in the Maestro van, though now with a turbocharger. Maestro and Montego production ramped down quickly once the 1989 Rover 214 and 216 were on stream – production dropped by 75% in 2 years from 1989, the MG and other premium versions were dropped in 1990 and it all finally petered out in late 1994. The last cars (this is a 1991) were the badged as Clubman, and had pressed steel bumpers, as used on the basic cars in 1893.

In many ways, the Maestro was like the Maxi – a reasonable idea whose execution was not up to the mark. In 1983, Austin-Rover said publicly “Metro was the key to our survival. Maestro is the key to our prosperity.’’ The British public, and more importantly the Thatcher government, could not and would not accept any excuses. If the Maxi was the last BMC car, then maybe the Maestro, with the Montego, was BL’s last car, and last real chance of an independent profitable future.

And like the Maxi, it failed.

80 Comments

I havent seen one for a while an orchardist I did pickups from had a Turbo MG model he was quite keen on he seemed to think it was quite a rocket ship and as it hadnt ever given trouble he still had it that was 10 years ago though, One or two might show up at the wheels on Windsor British European car club show this year most of the local oddballs come out for that I take the only Hillman Minx along to add some variety to the mix.

Some orphans I love, some I understand but otherwise prompt no response on an emotional level. Still others, like the Maestro, should never have seen the light of day.
Not heroic, just a huge misapplication of resources and effort for no lasting effect. All this within living memory of building some competent vehicles.

At least they picked a winner when determining which technology to borrow. Thank you for this sobering view into the abyss.

The styling may have been dated, but the size was, if anything, a generation ahead. The 1991-8 Astra would have a wheelbase of 99.1″, 66.8″ width and 159.4″ length, very close to Maestro’s 98.5″, 66″ and 158″ respectively. Perhaps a case of too much too soon.
The Maestro van lent its head and tail lights to a rather more successful BL venture by the Land Rover division. The angles from the rear of the Maestro still live on at the back of the current Discovery.

It’s kind of sad but if this car had arrived 10 years sooner, had been built ANYWHERE but Cowley, and if BL hadn’t been of the…..attitude that there was no point in fixing something they (mistakenly) thought wasn’t broken. Yeah, that’s a lot of ifs. But the history of BL is full paths (willfully?) not taken and development work delayed to the customer’s detriment.
They probably should have just “tossed” the Allegro and built this. And yes, I realize that wasn’t really possible.

I remember those well. I was in the UK and in the motor trade back then; even though I was restoring classic and vintage cars for living, we got our fair share of moderns and the Maestros/Montegos were everywhere. They were thought of in the same way as one would think about any industrial appliance: they did the job but not much more, certainly they were also-runs when compared with the VW Golf or the Vauxhall Astra. They were soemtimes laughed at by my cynical boss (and others) but were not derided quite as much as the Maxi. I managed to drive the two extremes of the scale: the 1.3 I found pathetically slow and sleep-inducing; the Turbo was indeed fast but only in a straight line, it had a dead steering and could be used to explain the term “torque steer” like no other car I have driven before or since. My Escort XR3i was far more fun and confidence-inspiring (so long one born in mind its crappy brakes, and planned ahead). Another nail in BMC’s/Rover (cars) coffin… To be true, they did sell resonably well, just not in the numbers Rover needed to stay alive.

So here’s the question: Considering the criticisms of the styling, value for money, and dubious reliability of cars like the Maestro (which are well-deserved), how is it that the Golf maintains its supremacy despite high prices, repair records that don’t match the perceived quality, and what I can only describe as a studious lack of visual imagination? Is the British love of expensive-looking coal-bin-black interiors that overwhelming or is it that the Golf has simply tripped over its own feet less than its obvious rivals?

For years, VW’s UK TV ads had the slogan “If only everything in life was as reliable as a Volkswagen”, and that stuck. There is zero perception of VWs as unreliable cars, although they are gaining a reputation as being less reliable than they were. In the UK the Mk2 Golf was considered bulletproof. I feel like people here are less concerned about reliability – if a car earns a bad enough reputation they will hear about it “down the pub”, otherwise buy what you want. I would guess there is a perception that Honda and Toyota might be the most reliable, but most people still don’t want one – despite the fact that they are cheaper used than VWs, and often on a par with Renaults and Fiats. I can remember hearing people refer to Japanese cars as “Jap crap”, due to a supposed cheap and tinny feel. To be fair, 70s Japanese cars rusted out here after about 70,000 miles and never got the chance to prove their mechanical durability.

VWs hold their value, which makes them a relatively sensible buy. Depreciation on cars here is a killer, I can’t ever imagine buying a brand new one. The big thing is probably just that a Golf is seen as cool, a Honda (like a Maestro) is seen as a boring, old person’s car. (the Jazz is definitely the official senior citizen mobile here, although funnily enough it seems to be facing a challenge from the VW Up!)

Lancia had to pull out of the UK partly due to the fact that any Lancia was worthless as soon as it left the showroom, due to elephant like memories of rusty Betas, despite the fact that the last Lancias sold here were among the most rust-resistant cars on the market. I also remember my dad warning my aunt not to buy a Vauxhall in the late 80s “because they rust”. She was considering an Astra, not a Victor, but hey ho.

It seems Honda has an opposite clientele Stateside, for I usually see young people driving Fits, my 2010 Civic’s ride is very firm, and the boy-racer silly muffler crowd prefer used Civics. Maybe only Accords & Acuras are of interest to geriatrics.

The reason British Honda owners tend to be older is that it takes longer for them to learn their lesson about driving low quality cars.

Of all the aspects of a FWD VW to take as was, the gearbox was a pretty miserable choice. It was probably the worst tactile thing about the cars they produced at the time.

67Conti

Posted February 17, 2015 at 2:13 PM

Except for a couple of years around 83-84 where there was a ring and pinion attachment issue with some of the close ratio transmissions used mostly in the GTI, the VW gearboxes were pretty much bullet proof. 200 to 300k miles are easily obtained without problems unless abused really badly.

CJinSD

Posted February 17, 2015 at 2:27 PM

The shift feel was awful. Also, the tiny plastic peg that served as the reverse lock out would snap off when anyone that didn’t know to push down on the lever to select reverse drove one. At that point, the gates for 1st, 2nd, and reverse were a crap-shoot. I test drove a bunch of used VWs in the ’80s that had this problem, and the same happened to my Jetta when a BMW driver parked it for me.

67Conti

Posted February 17, 2015 at 3:44 PM

The shifter linkage on the A2 cars is pretty crappy. The reverse “finger” broke off a few months ago and I had to lower the exhaust to install the ten dollar replacement lever with finger. Although this is after almost 30 years and 300k miles. And I have replaced shift bushings more than once, even when they are new although much improved the shifting feel is not great, although you do get used to it. I wonder if these cars may have had a different linkage arrangement?

CJinSD

Posted February 17, 2015 at 7:59 PM

I have no idea. The closest I’ve ever come to driving a Maestro was driving an MG Metro Cup car around Zandzoort for a couple laps over 30 years ago. I don’t recall the shifter being distinctly special in any way, and it would have been a BL gearbox anyway, and I don’t know whether the shift linkage was improved for the racing car I drove. It was also only the second or third manual car I’d ever driven. IIRC, it was worse than a ’71 Lancia Fulvia HF and better than a ’75 Rabbit or a Saab.

In Spain, VW has been always considered an “entry-premium” brand. Granted, it is not like the UK (where I also lived for a while), but it puzzles me until I compare any VW product with the same equivalent from Seat (as a former Seat Ibiza owner I can assess) is that the visible parts do not self-destruct.

Here, VW realiability is considered stellar. Japanese cars? They have a fame of being difficult to repair due to parts unavailabilty. Despite being in the EU and everything.

I know that Volkswagen has managed to establish and maintain a ‘premium’ brand image despite offering SEAT and Skoda variants of most of its cars that are 95% the same thing for less money. I’m less sure why, other than Germanness.

Like big Audis, VW Golfs seemed to lose their reliability when they became rabbits. Here in Europe the Golf has always been considered to be one of the most reliable cars on the market (it was). And indeed it (and most other VWs, except perhaps the dud Phaeton) seem to lose their value less than other brands. Opel used to be thought of as pretty reliable but it has gone through an awful period in 80s and 90s which effectively ruined its image. It is only now starting to come out of that low with the Insignia which seems to hold its used car value quite well. English cars fell apart but – from what I remember back then – at least in the UK could be repared ad infinitum (or until scrap yards ceased to have them in stock). A bit like Ladas. In mainland Europe it was a different story of course…

I don’t understand it either. I have a hard time believing that VWs are really that much better built in Europe, which leads me to the conclusion that cars there must simply be absolute garbage to make VWs the reliable choice.

It’s hard to compare, because so few American cars are sold in Europe, and European cars sold in the US may be built there or in Mexico, with significantly different specs. The most common US cars here are Chryslers, which are considered to be very poor quality, but I believe the same is true in the US.

Joe, I think the Europeans did a bad job when first having to contend with US emission rules – remember, in the EU the similar Euro 1 only came in later, and they did not accumulate as much experience as US and Japanese manufacturers did earlier. Making a car emission compliant was I believe a painful exercise for the others, too, it was just that they had experience with it ALL across the range, rather than selected (i.e., US-bound) models.

My speculation is that a lot of European buyers are simply less dependent on their cars for day-to-day life than Americans customarily are. In big cities, public transit is often better developed than here; there seems to be less social stigma associated with using it than in many parts of the U.S.; and there are lots of disincentives to commuting by car in many places, like London’s per-day charge for driving in the city center and just the high cost of fuel.

If your car is the only real way you have to get to work or school and pick up your kids and you know you’re going to have to keep any car for a long time, it creates different expectations of reliability. If you are commuting via the tube anyway and mainly use your car for special errands, vacations, and pleasure driving, I can see how that would immediately shift your priorities and bring stuff like brand equity and styling interest to the fore. (I do grasp the reasons European buyers tend to be ever-pickier about interior design and materials, which is an area where a lot of non-European small cars have tended to fall down in the interests of cost-cutting.)

Where I live, Toyotas are still advertised as ” the best-built cars in the world” even though – since most are no longer made in Japan- they are not. Most Golf buyers really do rely on their cars, and think they are buying a very reliable car. You really can fool most of the people most of the time !

It’s literally class-less, its depreciation is low, it’s a hatchback, it has the ideal size for Europe, it’s available with an endless range of gasoline and diesel engines, VW dealers are as common in Europe as GM dealers in the US and its “studious lack of visual imagination” has made it the Porsche 911 among the hatchbacks in the past 40 years.

That’s why it’s very successful.

Europeans drive European cars, vans, buses and trucks (any weight class), period. Give or take a few Japanese and Korean A- and B-segment cars.

My point is that when other manufacturers introduce a cautious, nigh-indistinguishable facelift of their existing shape, they’re generally pilloried in the press (not least in the British press) for unimaginative styling, but if it’s a new Golf, the press embraces every detail in the press kit about the wondrous new styling. That’s the part I don’t understand.

The rest of it is of course true, but also hardly specific to VAG. Most European C- and B-segment cars are hatchbacks these days (Europeans apparently having little to no interest in the notchback C-segment sedans that Americans prefer) and ideal size is always a moving target (as well as being the easiest quality to imitate).

Well, VW seems to have introduced a certain timeless generic hatchback style 40 years ago that pushed all the right buttons throughout Europe. It’s a well accepted and beloved shape among all generations and all income groups.

Showing up in a brand new Golf is always OK, anywhere and anytime. And showing up in a 15 year old (or even older) Golf in a good condition is always OK too, anywhere and anytime.

They will never change that styling drastically, it’s their post-1970 Beetle.
The C-segment is called the “Golf-class”, not the Escort~Focus or Kadett~Astra class.

Chris M.

Posted February 17, 2015 at 3:34 PM

In this country, showing up in a brand new Golf is also pretty much always OK. It does tend to have less of the “economy car” stigma than some of its competitors.

Showing up in a 15 year old Golf will have people wondering how much it’s cost you to keep the thing roadworthy. Volkswagens from about 1995 onward really have a lousy reliability record in this country. Does the Mexican assembly plant really have that much lower quality? Apparently it does.

Johannes Dutch

Posted February 17, 2015 at 10:45 PM

I still see plenty of Golfs II, III, IV and V being used as daily drivers.

And the Golf seems to have a loyal following. People don’t switch much to another brand or model once they drive them.

And I said it before: no one here who drives more than say 30,000 to 35,000 km a year does that with a gasoline engine. TDI it is, in Volkswagen’s case. And although I’m in a very small country I know a lot of guys who drive 40,000 km a year or more.

Growing up in 1980s UK I never felt the Maestro looked dated, and I’m surprised by how long ago it was designed. Maybe we were fooled by all the plastic, but my friends and I reserved our scorn for Maxis, Allegros, and 70s Japanese cars. Not that a Maestro was cool.

I never got to drive a Maestro or Montego, but they always seemed quite smooth and pleasant to ride in, and also quite spacious, especially compared to an Escort. In some ways it seems like a forerunner of the Fiat Tipo or Citroen ZX in that regard.

Greatly detailed write-up Roger! I’ve heard of this car, but am not that familiar with it, as the chances of seeing one over in the U.S. thirty years later are slim to say the least. I’m obviously not looking at it from a new car perspective in 1984, but in 2015 I think it’s kind of cute. I like the ’80s red interior accents an bumper strips. Those wheels on the featured car are sick! (or “tubular” should I say?)

It’s interesting comparing some of the differences of the European and American car markets – for example, the Vanden Plas? A compact with wood and leather? Especially in the ’80s, when virtually anything smaller than mid-size here was considered an “economy” car, but even today as smaller cars are becoming far better equipped, it’s rare to find one with the same level of interior trimmings as a large luxury car.

I think the Metro Vanden Plas is even more ridiculous in a way, although it didn’t have the fold-down wooden trays in the back seat like the Allegro, right?

Brendan – that’s one of the many endearing (or comical, or infuriating – depending on your perspective!) hallmarks of British Leyland/Austin-Rover cars. Nearly every single one of them was available as a poofy Vanden Plas model. I think it was only the roadsters and perhaps the Marina that escaped this treatment.

Thanks for another fine treatment of a British car that I was only vaguely familiar with.

If you were a lazier man, I think that you could write a generic story of the development and market performance of almost every British postwar car, certainly those mid-market and below. The company knew that it needed a big success. Odd decisions were made owing both to compromises due to cost and misreadings of the market. The car made it to market with several flaws, some fixable, others not. There was labor trouble involved. Also multiple mechanical and/or rust issues. Finally, the company pulled the plug on yet another wasted opportunity. Just insert the name of the car, and call it done.

I hate the fact that every time I start one of these pieces on a British car, I get the same feeling I get when I start reading something about the Titanic, the American Confederacy or the Chicago Cubs. You know that the story will end badly, but you can’t help but keep reading.

Yup, you pretty much nailed it JP. One element to add to the litany of British also-rans is the propensity to have some element in the vehicle that is different, exciting, potentially world-beating – and then screw it up for all the reasons given. Plus, atrocious marketing, you missed that one!
Eg, the Imp’s rear engine/rear hatch, the A40’s 20-years-before-Golf hatchback, the Maxi’s five-of-everything, the SD1’s style and power, the Princess’s comfort and space. Over and again, we toyed with greatness before blowing it.

Thanks for another fine read Roger.My neighbour had a talking MG Maestro(a rather ironic name,like calling a 6 foot tall guy Tiny) and it was proof never to buy a mark 1 anything.Mismatched panels,water leaks(both into the car and out of the radiator),electrical gremlins and more breakdowns than my other neighbours 15 year old Mk2 Cortina meant that as soon as the Maestro was working it was part exchanged for a BMW.
I never drove a Maestro but I had a Montego(BL not Mercury unfortunately) hire car which while it drove OK the drivers window slipped into the door and wouldn’t come up making a very cold drive from London to Manchester.

Could it not also be US-based factories & US-sourced parts, whose suppliers may be more calibrated to predatory Detroit practices? Extracting the last farthing out of business partners has always been the American Way.

I ask because last I checked, some models are still almost wholly Made in Japan (e.g. Prius, 4-Runner). It says to me “We don’t trust gaijin workers/suppliers,” more than “bad ¥/$ ratio.” And both countries are hard at it with QE monetary policy.

Well, I think some of the question of what’s built where has to do with factory capacity and some of it has to do with what sells where. The Prius and Aqua (Prius C) probably need specialized production lines — I’m guessing there, but it seems logical — and have been enormously popular in Japan, so it makes sense to keep production close to home so that JDM prices (in a very touchy market that’s as likely as not to buy a kei car) don’t get pushed up by transportation and duties. The wide-body Camry was primarily for North American consumption (although it was imported to Japan in modest numbers) and was Toyota’s bestselling U.S. model, so they built it here to avoid having to cap productions based on the voluntary import restrictions in effect back then.

In any case, even the U.S.-made stuff had Japanese content, which was getting ever more expensive because the dollar kept going down relative to the yen, so pennies started being pinched. It was more noticeable in the subsequent generation, which was actually designed with that in mind, but I wouldn’t be surprised to find evidence of it later in that generation.

I did not want a maestro ,had a metro turbo ,which I loved,kids came along,needed something bigger,so MG Maestro 1600 with webbers,the things they got slagged with [hot starting etc] could be easily over come with a light foot and extra cranking,never a problem for me.Then along came the EFI , excellent car,so good ive had 3 at various stages,then the Maestro Turbo,which hardly gets a mention in the review, fabulous car so good I now have 3,while I agree the brakes could have been better, never had much brake fade, and eventually none with greenstuff pads,nowadays mgtf 160 4 pot calipers/discs can be used,In the meantime I had a Escort RS Turbo,which during 12 months ownership ,ford had it more than I did,cam followers etc,I obviously await the sarcastic retorts ,but I don’t care,i speak as I find, good cars .great motoring experiences,which are still going on

I’ve heard of the MG Maestro, and it’s perhaps the best looking British car since the Rover SD1. Why it failed to capture the market is anyone’s guess. My guess is that while under the control of British Leyland, quality control was iffy at best.

I think it was primarily a marketing issue. Ford really had the British boy racer market locked up in the early to mid-80s with the Fiesta XR2 and Escort XR3/XR3i. It wasn’t that they were necessarily great cars or even the best of their kind, but in terms of product planning, Ford was pressing all the right buttons and backing it with lots of marketing cash, plus attention-grabbers like the Escort RS Turbo. The critical consensus of the time was that the Golf GTi was probably the better car, but it was a fair chunk more expensive and maybe a little too sober for your stereotypical wild-eyed teenage hoon.

The MG Maestro suffered from being obviously still a Maestro and I’m not sure the MG badge didn’t do more harm than good. BL actually tried pretty hard to court the major MG clubs, but the MG Faithful were still burned about the closure of Abingdon and the demise of the “proper” MGs. If you weren’t among the Faithful and you didn’t have any great lingering affection for the rubber-bumper MGB or Midget, putting the octagon on a Maestro probably wasn’t going to impress you either. That’s a lot of baggage for even a brilliant car and I don’t think even the most ardent MG Maestro defenders (are there any still? there must be) would claim it was that.

What’s sad about Abingdon, it was reported as having one of the least contentious workforces at BL, and moreover, MG seemed to have a better general reputation than sibling marques, on both ends of the Atlantic. No wonder badge-engineering an Austin family car insulted many enthusiasts, though to be sure, MG did offer unique sport-saloons (like the handsome 6-cyl SA & WA) during the ’30s; Germany was their best export market for these.

BTW, I recently learned they tested every MGB they built, on local roads.

What boggles my mind is the amount of lag time seen with the Maestro between conception and birth. Six years is a mighty long time in the auto industry.

Roger, the mixture of elements you present in your various articles has certainly outlined the soap opera that tends to be the British automobile industry and it has really been great to learn about it all.

Back in 1989 my father was thinking about buying a new car, and a Montego 2.0 was one of our options. Typical ropey reliability stories were plentiful, but at least the styling was rather elegant and inside it looked upmarket, kind of. You see, it was Spain in the ´80s, and here a british car was seen as prestigious as a german one.

“Elegant” was not a word you could say about the Maestro, which remembered that after the Maxi, Alegro and Marina, BL still knew how to make a deeply unattractive car. The rear end looked weak; but the car was roomy, confortable and the MG versions were rather quick. Not a bad car, after all.

that should read the soap opera that was the British auto industry.Past tense.Nobody wanted this boring unaspirational car with its total non styling and the 3 box Montego version was even uglier.I’m sure the American subscribers who make up the majority here would be appalled if they saw what happened when the Maestro morphed into the Austin Montego.
They actually both make the Allegro and Marina look quite good

Fascinating and very complete write-up Roger – as always! We got the Maestro here in New Zealand, and Dad was working for the local BL dealer at the time. I couldn’t tell you what models we got, but the Vanden Plas and MGs were definites, and the odd one survives to appear at shows.

I was always intrigued at how the Maestro and Montego (which we also got and which I’ve driven) shared so many parts yet to my eyes looked completely different in size. I didn’t know the Maestro wheelbase was smaller, so that explains part of the different appearance. The Maestro looks far narrower than thre Montego too though, and I’ve no idea how they pulled that one off! Must be something to do with the flat front end – the Montego seems to have quite a bit more forward-curvature.

As I mentioned on my recent Marina van article, the Maestro vans were popular here back in the day, and a long-standing local auto transmission specialist had several. One of them was rallied, and I was very surprised one day to discover it was registered as a 1989 Nissan Bluebird Attessa Turbo…the floorpan and interior structure up to the windowsills was Bluebird, with the full Maestro body fitted over the top. The ultimate sleeper! It’s still around (albeit in poor repair in storage now); I must try to get some photos of it.

Roger, excellent article as usual, great insight into this car. I never had any clue they were held up in development for so long. Honestly, from an American perspective, it’s extremely hard to see how this car could have looked dated in the mid-’80s… people were still buying plenty of full-size BOF tanks over here, so my perception is majorly skewed in that respect. I’ve always liked how they looked (the BRG MG seen here is especially sweet) and aside from the assumption of typical BL/Austin-Rover build quality/reliability issues, I could never have understood what made them a failure without reading something like this.

I see you mentioned they gained EFI eventually, but didn’t the range-topping Maestro Turbo have a carbed engine? I vaguely remember reading that somewhere, and thinking it was particularly odd. If that’s the case then it was surely the last carbed/turbo engine ever built.

I never thought these cars looked dated at the time ..they were just uninspired dull and ugly.The main article clearly makes the point that the Ford Escort and Vauxhall Astra were stylish and much nicer to own.Aside from the Farina contract in the late 50s Austin always seemed incredibly arrogant and complacent in thinking the buyers would accept its terrible in house styling and also its badly executed engineering.Prime example being the Maxi- a decent car hobbled by having to share the centre structure of the hideous 1800 a weak engine and a gearshift that was described at the time as like stirring a knitting needle in a bag full of marbles and causing anxiety to the driver whenever he/she tried to change gear.
Heres a pic of the Montego .If I wrote a list of the 10 ugliest British postwar cars the non Farina Austins would make up 50% of them.

The dishing in the panels from front to back down the side, is very reminiscent of the original Range Rover – another David Bache design. I think it is a very elegant and attractive feature which had the potential to make the car look as good as the Range Rover.

But somehow here the rest of the car misses the mark. It could have looked “spacey” and modern but looks dull and a bit awkward to my eye. I think it’s in the details rather than the overall shape.

It looked worse in real life especially around the c pillar and rear screen.Very roomy inside but then so was the Austin 1800.Very much a sensible older persons car but without any of the virtues or qualities that made people love the Austin Cambridge or the Volvo 240

I too am shocked by the time gap between design and introduction.Nevertheless, I don’t think the styling was the problem with the Maestro – the bar was set very low in the 80s, what with the jelly-mould Sierra and the truly ugly Mk 2 Astra. Leyland build quality was surely the main problem. Golfs and Astras were reasonably well built at the time, and didn’t need to go back to the dealer unless they were due for servicing.

Great article. Much appreciated the photos and ads (“Born to Perform Miracles”?!) Especially interesting to me as a British car owner (had several, and currently have an old MG TD that I enjoy very much). The story of the British car industry is fascinating, complicated, and unfortunately in the end, sad.

The Maestro wasn’t really a bad car, considering the times, but it was a bad MG. There’s obviously more to a car than just the badge on the front, but some in British Leyland’s management didn’t really understand MG, the people who bought them, or even some of the MG workforce. The car had engine issues, and the generally poor build quality of the time. The Maestro really needed to be- and should have been- better than anything else, not as someone here accurately commented, an “almost car”. By the time this was built, it’s almost as if no one cared anymore.

The MG versions pictured actually aren’t bad-looking. The details make them, like those truly magnificent 80’s space-age alloys on the blue example, the contrasting color trim, the subtle spoilers, all seem to work together well. Perhaps it wasn’t a very good MG but it was a good way to spice up an awkward shape and actually make it look desirable.

Sadly, the Austin versions, especially the lower-trim variants, had none of those things to lean on and the fundamental awkwardness of the proportions came to the foreground. And the rest of the car was just bland. Not a good combination.

Haven’t ever driven one, or even seen one in the metal, but the Austin version does look like something that would be bought by either a traditionalist who’s always bought Austins, or someone whose main criteria were space efficiency and value for money, things like style and refinement be damned.

“but this was not ready for production in time for the Maestro, partly because the company had been unable to make a full business case for it to the UK government.”

And that statement is an indictment of government meddling in the affairs of carmakers. (I was going to say private companies but BLMC was partly state-owned, wasn’t it?)

Hi Roger, I just wanted to tell you how much I appreciate your write-ups about European cars from the 70’s and 80’s. It’s like picking up a copy of the British CAR and What Car? magazines I read while I was growing up. I am one of the weird people in the US who is fascinated by European family cars from this era that are not the usual high-end sports cars covered by the likes of Car and Driver. I’d like to see similar write-ups about the final generation Mark V Ford Taunus/Cortina, Renault 9, Chrysler 1308, Spanish FASA Renault 7, Peugeot 305, first generation Fiat/SEAT Panda, first generation Ford Fiesta, if you ever get around to them.

Living in England in the early ’80s, there were many of these around, but they were generally treated as “compromise” cars, bought either on price, availability of credit for the purchase, or for those that wanted to support the “home” team. Some owners freely admitted that the Fords were better cars, but they wanted to support BL.

Like Motor Trend magazine endlessly flogging the Vega and, later, the GM J-car, as the next great thing in automobiledom, the British car magazines tried to talk these up, too. The point of comparison was not anything really great about the car, but rather how much better it was than the older model Austins.

God, I love your articles, Roger. I grew up reading a fair amount of CAR and What Car and other UK magazines, and they are often an excellent read in spite of their incessant British-car-cheerleading (remember the Jag X-Type cover story when they said it was a rival to multiple disparate cars including a WRX?), and their rampant bitchiness (ESPECIALLY against American cars, which is only sometimes deserved) and their, understandably given the market, strong focus on diesel availability and, more recently, CO2 emissions. I stumbled across a Rover 600 a while ago which I keep meaning to write up, but I’d love to see your thoughts on the Rover 800 as that has only been covered here as a Sterling. Plus the Metro/Rover 100, and just… hell, really anything Rover/BMC/BL is bound to be a good read.

There are a surprising number of those late BL Rovers and Rhondas around here I keep seeing different models and wondering about them, I was in Aussie when they were new so saw none but my BIL was partsmanager at a Rover Jaguar concern through most of the 90s knows the various models well.

The Maestro could have been so much better and it’s sad really. With VW Golf bits, the decent OHC S-series, the reliable, if archaic A-series engines and nods to the future with the talking dash. The later Montegos weren’t bad, looked fairly smart in the right colours and the estates were cavernous 7-seater workhorses. Both models used to be pretty common when I was growing up (but I grew up until the age of 8 in Brum so naturally…) and now it’s an occasion if I see one. I’d still have one tbh.

The MG versions always looked good (especially in black, and take modifying well too), and the turbo was ferociously fast (and rare with only 505 made).